The Dead and Waiting
by painkillerjane
Summary: One shot told in snippets. The death of Sirius causes Harry to accept death and use the sacrifice, along with all those who laid down their lives before and after that of Sirius, to defeat Lord Voldemort. Warning: character deaths both implied and canon. implied canon pairings


A/N: Written for the HPFC Camp Potter Archery Challenge Week 2 using the prompts:

Mandatory:_**write about death**_, optional: '**_Why' by Enigma_** 2. _**"Mothers know best."**_ 3. _**burning**_ 4. graveyard 5. _**thief**_.

_The use of "eyes as green as the killing curse" is from borrowed from __**Kayly Silverstorm's Had I Known. **_**A**lso, i used the prompt for the HPFC Camp Potter Archer Challenge Week 1:Write about waiting because I felt that waiting and death went hand in hand.

Discailmer: I own nothing of the Potter Universe!

* * *

The Dead and Waiting

_When you're dead all you have left to do is wait. You wait for night to become day, for the colors to brighten then fade. But most of all, you wait for life to end. _

_And waiting is _hard_._

_Dying was easy and fleeting. All the sounds get loud and intense and then stop. All movement becomes sluggish like stop motion then fast and everything happens all at once. Your heart pumps and pumps and pumps while your head screams. When you're dying, your hands search, frantically reaching for some way to grasp that strand that tethers you to life. All until your heart beats faster and faster and then stops. Then there's nothing, nothing but darkness, nothing but quiet, nothing but waiting. _

_When I died I left Harry alone to fight against all the evil in the world. A force so brutal that there is no preparing oneself for horrors unimaginable; there is only waiting._

_In that matter, we are both waiting. I wait behind the Veil and he waits to meet this_ Evil_ that will ultimately reunite us._

_And I pray he has the strength to keep me waiting._

* * *

"Harry? Harry, Mate, come on it's time for breakfast."

Harry feigned sleep. Everything in the world he had was gone. His family was gone and it was only a matter of time before Ron or Hermione left him too. He could feel his friend moving closer.

"What's the point of it," Harry asked, his whole body shuddering at the memories that plagued him. "Huh, Ron? You tell me what the bloody point is."

Ron stopped by the edge of Harry's bed, mouth open, speechless and closed it promptly.

"Uh… it's… Harry, I… I don't know, mate." The bed dipped as the redhead dropped down next him on the bed. "Listen, Harry, I can't imagine what you are feeling but don't tell me that's it."

"Why go on? Seriously, Ron, Why? Everyone who was a part of my family is now dead and gone."

"You know what…"

"Wha…" Harry didn't get a chance to complete his question. In a flurry of motion, Ron had already stood up, turned and hoisted the _boy-who-whined_ straight out of bed.

"First of all, _Harry_," his name came flying out of his friends mouth like something distasteful and insulting, "my mum is waiting downstairs. Do you want to deal with _'Mother knows best'_?"

Harry shook his head solemnly. He had been on the receiving end of Molly's wrath and her over-protectiveness a time or two and while he considered her something of a surrogate mother, he knew better than to cross her in any manner. He really didn't want to succumb to her 'You're too thin, eat this, Harry dear,' either.

"I didn't think so. And Secondly, Harry, we are all here for you." Ron put his hand on his friends shoulder, cutting him off before he could speak. "We are here to help you, and understand. There's a lot of understanding happening here, mate, whether you notice or not. And we lost someone too. While we can't feel your pain, we share a pain none the less."

Harry stared at him, eyes just a bit wider, the dullness his eyes had taken on becoming brighter and brighter until he blinked. The brightness collected on his eyelashes only to fall silently down his cheeks. He was crying. Not the mangled gnarled sobbing followed by a tempest of anger that occurred in the headmasters office a few weeks ago, but a quiet sorrowful weeping of a fresh wound newly opened. Ron reached up to cup Harry's cheek, an act filled with such compassion and love that Harry leaned into the touch. Ron brushed the falling tears with his thumb, his heart aching for his friend, his _brother._ He pulled him into a fierce hug, choking off his own sob as he held his brother. No one had bothered to console him, thinking him stronger and entitled to his pain and the necessity to grieve in private; this single act tearing asunder healed wounds and re-knitting them into a something better than a depressed shell of a person, helping him to be whole again.

"Ron, I saw his face in the mirror…"

Ron let him talk, there was no need to answer, all he needed to do he was already doing.

They stood this way until Ginny appeared in the door way. Ron glanced at her, a knowing look passing between them as she moved towards the boys, placing a hand on Harry's lower back, silently urging him to turn. Harry looked at her through bleary eyes and smiled a small sad smile. There was still hope shining in her eyes, though she frowned; bright sunny days promised in the shine of her hair and a fresh wave began to flow. This time they were for what the future could hold. The promise left from the sacrifice others had made for them to be here, in this small room right now, clinging to each other as if their lives depended on it.

And it did. Their lives depended on their ability to hope and love and believe in a brighter future even though they stood in a fog so dense that even a Hinkypunk would have trouble maneuvering. The future of all Wizarding kind depended on him to survive death yet again.

His smile, sad though it was, reached his eyes, lighting them with a burning so deep they almost glowed. Harry pulled away from the siblings and moved through the door, pausing briefly at the threshold he tilted his head to the side and said, "Death is _not_ going to stop me as long as I have you. All of you, my _family._"

He smiled, a burning smile, a _true_ smile and walked out the door.

* * *

_"He has waited as long as was necessary, Lilly." Sirius moved to grasp her hand as she looked at the son she never knew, but gave everything for, walk away from all of them. _

_They vowed to be with him always, sharing their memories of a love so far beyond any measure even that of death. _

_"I pray we have given him all he needs to make Death a weapon. I only wish I could shield him from all of it." James said, his eyes misting as he walked to the edge of their circle in his sons footsteps. He walked back to the group gathered to watch Harrys retreating form. _

* * *

He walked a path to face death or deal it. Harry marched his death march, not alone, but with his family and friends in his heart. The strength of those long and newly dead rippled through him, filling him with a calming peace. He no longer feared his fate or his confrontation. After all he had dealt with, after listening to everything anyone ever said, it seemed to him that the dead made more sense than the living; for they knew what it meant to lay it all down. And he never felt more grateful or more loved than he did in this moment. He didn't look back to where the ghosts of his family, surrogate and real, stood, but kept his eyes on his path, feet never wavering or stumbling.

He reached the edge of the forest and continued to the common grounds of Hogwarts where the Thief of Death stood amidst a blazing fight. His maniacal laugh in the face of his opponents reached his ears and spurned him to move faster. He would end this now. He would stop the fighting, end the pain, and kill the thief once and for all. He was going to make the thief of death pay with more than what remained of his life. He was going to remind him of his humanity.

He reached the battle grounds at the threshold of the school and halted. He saw his friends being cut down by curses, some physically engaged in a feral fight, and in the middle of all the chaos was the one responsible for all the pain and death from the past three decades. He walked towards him, the fighting around him slowing as duelers turned their attention to the _Chosen One_.

"Harry Potter." Voldemort stepped towards Harry, robes moving likes snakes around his body, "Where have you been, dear boy? Letting others fight your_ good fight_ for you as always? Too afraid to face your demise?"

Harry didn't utter a single word. Didn't acknowledge the thief's taunting either, he simply continued his death march until he stood inches apart from Voldemort. His eyes shining the bright green of the killing curse, and raised his wand to his own temple.  
"Would you like to see what flourishes in the wake of destruction, _Tom_?"

The fighting had ceased all around, both forces holding their breath as a collective as the pair stood in the center of their circle.

"Let me show you," he whispered. His hand reaching out pulling Voldemort's face towards his own until their foreheads touched. He withdrew his wand from his temple and with it a gossamer strand as thick as a sapling. Harry swished the strand, making it whip around them until it wrapped around both their bodies, binding them in the memories of the past 17 years of his life.

They plunged into his memory still bound face to face. Lord Voldemort hissing as a barrage of emotions whirled around them.

"This is what I have survived because of you. This is what made me strong, what you have always mistaken for weakness. This is what _love_ is, Lord Voldemort, and the strength that accompanies it!"

The forms of his mother and father whirled into focus, one on each side of Voldemort; their hands pulled at his robes as they susurrated their proclamations of love for their boy in his ear; their words palpable in the wake of all the chaos making Voldemort shudder. He shook his head, growling in Harry's face.

"You think a few ghosts will frighten me, boy?"

Harry just smiled as Sirius and Remus appeared at his sides, their hands pulling him away from the Dark Lord breaking the bind. His memories flashed to life between them. His first real Christmas with Ron; his parents smiling at him when he was a baby; Sirius walking him to platform 9 ¾ as Padfoot; Hermione hugging him after waking up in the infirmary in their third year, his first kiss with Ginny, dancing with Luna at Slughorn's Christmas party, summer at The Burrow, his own jumper from Molly; Remus asking him to be Teddy's Godfather.

"You have been nothing but a thief, stealing what rightfully belongs to Death. You," Harry swished his wand at him, "will never hurt anyone else."

The ghosts of all those who died at his hands and his cause poured forth from Harry's wand. They swirled around Lord Voldemort pulling at his robes, tearing at his flesh. He covered his ears and screamed. Harry stood, watching the madness, and smiled a small smile.

"You were right, Tom, we shared a lot of traits. Until I embraced the love those around me had to offer." Harry turned and walked away.

He didn't see Voldemort stripped nude. Didn't stop to watch as Death hovered over him ready to take what was long overdue. He kept on walking pausing only to collect his classmates to take them away from the madness.

* * *

_"Tom, it's time to go." Merope extended her hand to her boy, huddled in the midst of a battle long over._

_He shook his head, and wept.  
"My boy, it's over. Come home with me. I promise never to let you go."_

_"Mother?"_

_"Yes, my boy, my Tom. I am here to take you home."_

_"Why!" He stared at his hands, the hands of a boy once more and not that of the man who cheated death. "They took everything from me!"_

_"I can't show you anymore, my boy, I can only show you the things I've learned from you. Many years and stupid fights took you away, you were to blind to see that you made the good ones disappear."_

_Tom stared at his mother and slowly, hesitantly, placed his hand in hers. "Will you show me the things you learned from me?"_

_"Yes, Tom. This time I will be there to show you that I love you."_

They walked away from the rubble and marched their own Death march, one filled with the potential of a love stronger than any bond and this time, maybe Tom would see.


End file.
